Chapter 30 – The Promised One

Dear Diary,

It has been several weeks since Jude and I discovered the Candordrill. After she gave the drill to me for good, Jude and I had not spoken since. I don’t know why but I can’t seem to find her anywhere. Not at the orphanage, not at work, nowhere. It was as if she just moved to another village or something.

One day when I was working, I was notified that something bad had happened at the orphanage and my colleague told me to come home at once. I immediately dropped whatever I was doing and returned to the orphanage. On my way there, I saw people running away from something, coming towards me in crowds. The closer I got to the orphanage, the more people coming towards my way. I started getting anxious and restless about what was happening in front of me. I accelerated my steps and started dashing through the crowd to hurriedly arrive at the orphanage.

The moment I arrived, I saw a big fire consuming the orphanage’s roof and walls. Other buildings nearby were also consumed by the fire. Nobody tried to extinguish the fire and ran away instead, fleeing their homes. I went closer to the orphanage to see if anyone was there.

“There she is.”

I heard someone’s voice in front of the orphanage. I turned my head around to see who said it. It was a girl in a black cloak. The girl pointed her finger at me and told the other cloaked people behind her to come and get me.

The moment I saw them coming closer to me, I saw the face of the person who just pointed her finger at me.

“...Jude?”

She unveiled her hood and showed her face. A woman next to her–– who seemed to be the one leading the group–– stood next to her and gave an order to her followers.

“Grab her.”

The people behind the leader grabbed my arm and forced me to kneel. I tried resisting, but their collective power was immense. I was too weak to get out of their grasp.

Jude then started searching my body and emptied my pockets. She was looking for something specific.

“She doesn’t have it with her,” Jude reported to the leader.

“Keep searching the area. It must be somewhere around,” the leader replied.

The leader came closer to me and grabbed my cheeks to lift my face upwards. She ordered me to speak.

“Where is the drill?”

She stared right into my eyes. Her sharp chestnut-coloured eyes were like a sword stabbing through my soul.

“I don’t know.”

She slapped me with so much force that I felt dizzy after a single slap. It felt like she just shook my brain with that slap.

"Liar."

Suddenly, I felt like my energy was being sucked by her. It felt like I was slowly getting weaker and weaker just by her touch.

“Where. Is. The. Drill?

She reiterated the same question. She was firm to keep asking until she got the answer she wanted.

I kept answering the same thing, and in exchange, I received an even stronger slap every time. My face was all bruised and I started having blood dripping from my nose.

After relentlessly interrogating and torturing me, the woman finally gave up. She stood up, drew a sword and pointed it at me.

“On behalf of the Heretic Hunter, hereby I sentence you to death for being in possession of a forbidden weapon.”

I knelt in silence, speechless. I had no idea that drill was a weapon, let alone a forbidden one.

“Jude…what’s the meaning of this?”

I asked Jude for some clarification. She looked at me in the eye with a disgusted look on her face.

“That object was supposed to be mine. Now I’m glad it wasn’t. Fucking alpha.”

I was hurt by what she said. After all this time she said that she had nothing against alphas and hated the idea of discrimination against alphas in this village, she turned out to be just the same as everyone.

Inferring from what she said, that meant that she was the one who reported it to the Heretic Hunter. Solely because she was jealous that the drill chose me instead of her.

“Now I have come to pass judgement to you. Any last words?”

I closed my eyes and knelt in silence. I had nothing to say other than to accept my fate as a lowly alpha in this world.

The woman then swung her sword at me to send her final blow.

Before her sword reached me, I heard a sound of steel clashing right in front of me. I opened my eyes to see what happened in front of me.

“Marie. Run!”

It was Cleric Virga who protected me. She held off the woman using a small dagger. She threw the Candordrill towards me which I caught using my mouth.

The drill immediately reacted upon contact with me. It suddenly radiated a blinding light around us, like a flash bomb.

Everyone around was blinded by the light and accidentally let go of my arms. I used the chance to free myself from them and grabbed the drill onto my hand.

Suddenly, the drill grew in size hundred folds to the size of a gigantic drill. I swung it around and yeeted everyone wearing the black cloaks in a single swing, including Jude. They were sent flying to the other side of the orphanage.

Right when I turned my head back, I saw Cleric Virga on the ground, lying in a pool of blood.

“Cleric Virga!!!”

I shouted and came towards her. Despite having been able to hold off the woman from attacking us further, Cleric Virga received a fatal blow that caused her loss a lot of her blood.

“You need to get away now, Marie.”

“Cleric Virga, I…”

“Go! Now!”

The woman then approached us once again, slowly. Unlike the others, she was intimidating. I was so scared of her that I couldn’t even move my legs to stand up. I could only point my drill at her, which had just shrunk back to its original size.

“Pathetic.”

The moment the woman was about to swing her sword towards us, Cleric Virga grabbed my hand which was holding on to the Candordrill for dear life. Suddenly, I felt a surge of energy flowing towards the drill. It was a bright orange aura that flashed around my paws. The drill then suddenly expanded twice as big as the one that I used to yeet the the woman's followers. The drill then pushed the woman away and sent her flying across the burning buildings. The drill had once again managed to save my life.

“Marie…you are….the chosen one.”

Cleric Virga handed me a sealed scroll. It seems like she did a research about the drill when she confiscated it.

“You are the promised Werebeast. Go to the capital and search for this person. Learn to control the drill. You are the only one who can save us all.”

Her body was cold, colder than ice. She then closed her eyes as she uttered her last words.

I gripped the scroll and held it tightly. I walked away from the scene thereafter.

I looked back before leaving the village for good. Everything was burning. District 13 had been completely annihilated. The Heretic Hunter burnt everything to the ground, leaving only ashes as remains. Nobody and nothing survived. I finally left the village with tears dripping down my face.

Goodbye, Cleric Virga.

Love,

Marie